Not in Front of the Corgis (8 page)

Of all the Royals, past and present, one stands out as the most indolent. Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, third son of King George V, was a man of whom it was said that if he could have got someone else to breathe for him, he would.

The description is perhaps a little unfair as, along with his brothers, he was totally inhibited by their father and any signs of individuality were quickly stamped out. Also, in his early life he was a modest and easy-going career soldier, but after suffering severe injuries in a car crash, his faculties were impaired and he retired to his home within St James’s Palace where his later reputation was earned. Perhaps the kindest way to describe the Duke of Gloucester was to say he was ‘uncommunicative’. Shortly before he died in 1974, he was dozing before the fire in his sitting room. This was in the days when they still enjoyed open, coal fires. A footman entered the room and noticed a piece
of coal had jumped out of the fire and was burning a hole in the carpet. The man ran across the room and using tongs, picked up the coal and put it back on the fire. Whereupon, the Duke shouted at him, ‘Where the bloody Hell have you been. That’s been burning like that for ten minutes.’ The thought of using the tongs himself simply would not have occurred to him. It was because of such incidents that Prince Henry’s reputation grew among the staff. He also liked to ‘go commando’ when wearing a kilt at Balmoral. And, as he usually sat with his legs wide apart, it was left to his wife to gently remind him to sit in a more gentlemanly fashion.

He was destined for the Regular Army, naturally as an officer, and surprised his parents by doing rather well in his entrance examinations for Sandhurst Military Academy.

When he married, in 1935, Lady Alice
Montague-Douglas
-Scott, a daughter of the fabulously wealthy Duke of Buccleuch, whose family owned the last private house in Whitehall, it was said that His Grace was not all that pleased and thought it was Prince Henry who was marrying above his station. As it turned out, theirs was a long and successful marriage, and they were the only members of their generation of royalty to actually share a bed, because the Duke hated to sleep alone. Their three sons, one of whom, Prince William, a successful rally driver, was tragically killed in a flying accident in 1972, were, and are,
credits
to the family. The present Duke of Gloucester, who lives in an elegant thirty-five-roomed apartment in Kensington Palace, carries out a programme of public
engagements and his staff have no cause to complain about any lack of good manners, or energy. As long as they maintain a continuous supply of chocolate, he is happy, as he is a self-admitted chocoholic, loving it in every form, liquid or solid.

But the present Duchess of Gloucester is not the favourite member of the family in the opinion of some of the domestic staff. The turnover in the Gloucester Household is faster than in any other Royal Household, and none of it is as a result of the behaviour or attitude of the Duke.

One of the difficulties that servants have to come to terms with is that the Royal Family, with the
exception
of The Queen, are not always consistent in their dealings with their staff. One day they can appear to be informal and friendly, the next, or even later that same day, something will upset them and the curtain will fall once again. And the servants claim that the Royals they get on with least of all are those who are members of the Royal Family through marriage; in other words, commoners like themselves.

The most successful servants are those who maintain a formal approach to their jobs and never confuse apparent friendliness from the boss with true friendship. Though there are exceptions. Nannies are unique in royal service. They spend more time with their charges than their parents do and frequently are regarded more as surrogate mothers than servants.

The famous, some would say notorious, Bobo McDonald, The Queen’s nanny since she was a baby, wielded an influence over the infant Princess Elizabeth that lasted until the day Bobo died, even though
she had long retired and the child had been Queen for many years.

Miss McDonald (her sister Ruby was nanny to Princess Margaret) ruled the nursery with a rod of iron and was waited upon by a team of maids
throughout
her adult life. They were both feared and hated in equal measure by the rest of the Household and together with their cronies, it was said they could have formed a coven.

She served The Queen for sixty years, during which time she was not required to eat with the other staff in the Servants Hall, but had her meals served to her in her own dining room, which, like her sitting room, was decorated and furnished to her own personal taste. Footmen and maids were instructed that they were not to address her personally or meet her eyes if they passed in one of the corridors, and even the Lord Chamberlain knew that when she called him Sir, she didn’t really mean it, believing she was superior to everyone else in the Household. And The Queen indulged her every wish. Bobo was also a fearful snob. On one occasion when the then Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip were staying on the estate of Lord and Lady Brabourne (later Countess Mountbatten of Burma) they were given the use of the cottage in the grounds to afford them a little privacy. When Bobo saw it, she was appalled, calling it a hovel and not fit for ‘her Princess’. Later she relented, saying, ‘Why can’t we have a lovely little cottage just like this one.’

She was also the only person outside the Royal Family who was allowed to call The Queen by her
childhood nickname, Lillibet. If any other member of the Household had dared to do so, he or she would have found the Palace doors slammed on them with chilling finality.

In the latter years of her life, Bobo was given the use of a suite of rooms immediately above The Queen’s private apartments where Her Majesty would visit her old nanny every day without fail to bring her the latest Palace gossip.

Similarly, Prince Charles’s two nannies, Helen Lightbody and Mabel Anderson, became so close to him that it bordered on obsession, on all sides. He came to rely on them so much that when the time came for him to go away to school, it broke his heart, and he sobbed uncontrollably in their arms. It wasn’t because he was leaving his mother, but his beloved nannies.

Princess Anne, as ever the no-nonsense sibling, never enjoyed the same relationship with the two nannies. To her they were simply her mother’s
servants
and should be, and were, treated as such. The Household is now holding its breath to see how the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the latest royal couple to set up home, will be thought of by their servants. If early indications are anything to go by, theirs will be a less formal Household than that of any of their family, but with William’s future role coming closer every year, it may become necessary for them to adopt a more traditional attitude.

It will be interesting to see where William and Kate come in the servants’ royal popularity stakes ten years from now.

N.B.
Of the above-mentioned annuities paid to members of the Royal Family, only the £359,000 paid to the Duke of Edinburgh comes out of public funds. The Queen refunds the remainder, some £1,254,000, to the Treasury.

he Royal Household, and this means those who work at all the royal residences – Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Sandringham, the Palace of Holyroodhouse and Balmoral – employs around 1,200 men and women in a huge variety of posts.

Where else would you find a Liveried Helper, Royal Mews, a Deputy Yeoman of the Royal Cellars, an Education Co-ordinator, a Head of Photographic Services, a Warden at Windsor Castle, a Limner in Ordinary (whatever that is), a Head Coffee Room Maid, Wash-up Assistants, Flower Arranger and Gilders, Cabinet Makers, Locksmiths, a Fender Mender and French Polishers all under the same roof?

They come under the titular head of the Household, the Lord Chamberlain, who in theory is responsible for everything and everybody with the exception of
royal funerals and the Coronation. Those are
organised
by the Earl Marshall, the Duke of Norfolk.

One task that present Lord Chamberlains do not have to contend with any more – but which most of them thoroughly enjoyed at the time – is that of being the ‘nation’s conscience’ – as they were described under The Theatres Act 1843, which gave the Lord Chamberlain responsibility for licensing theatres and making sure nothing ‘unsuitable’ was performed.

During the twentieth century, the theatre that gave the Lord Chamberlain the most headaches was The Windmill in London, where the first entirely nude revues were staged.

Among the many complaints received was one that stated, ‘The two girls with the large balloons were also insufficiently covered about the breasts…’ To which the theatre manager, the legendary Vivian Van Damm replied, ‘…It appears that in the hot weather the
elastic
holding the tops, which is not of as good quality as normally, is inclined to become slack after a day or so. I have therefore given instructions for this to be renewed whenever necessary.’

It is difficult today to understand what all the fuss was about when anything goes on stage or film. Producers could not show anything depicting royalty until 1937, and the idea of a man and woman together in bed under the same sheet was strictly off-limits. But the Lord Chamberlain and his staff took their responsibilities very seriously, and made frequent visits to the Windmill, and any other theatre where there were doubts about offending public decency. All in the name of duty, of course. No one will admit
whether they were reluctant to give up this ‘perk’ once the Theatres Act 1968 relieved them of such onerous duty. When the Lord Chamberlain or his
representative
visited the Windmill, or any other theatre where glimpses of the female anatomy might be thought to be offensive, the clerks in the office would often run a book to see what the ‘Nipple Count’ would be that day. It was a harmless sideline to an otherwise boring daily routine, and the prize money rarely ran to more than a pound or two.

Day in, day out, the business of a modern
constitutional
monarchy is conducted by a variety of talents ranging from accountants, who balance the royal chequebook, private secretaries, who arrange The Queen’s diary, the press office, to make sure the media do not get hold of anything of which they might disapprove, and the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, responsible for all ceremonial matters. It was this office that made the arrangements for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The Crown Equerry in the Royal Mews and garage controls the transport of any member of the Royal Family by road, whether it’s in one of the priceless ornate carriages on a State
occasion
, or providing a limousine for The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh anywhere in the country, or just a saloon car to be driven around London.

The Palace kitchens provide up to 600 meals every day, mainly for the 339 full-time staff, and even more when the 215 part-time and honorary positions that obviously do not come in on a daily basis, arrive for a special occasion.

The Household is still a world where liveried
servants
wait on other servants, where everything stops for Afternoon Tea, though, by tradition, no one sits down in the Equerries Withdrawing Room as they sip their Earl Grey from bone china cups and nibble on cucumber sandwiches. It must surely be the only place left in the world which boasts a Coffee Room Maid, or where a supply of black-edged writing paper and envelopes is kept in case there is a death in the family and the Court goes into mourning. Or which employs a young man one of whose duties is to replace a sheet of black blotting paper on The Queen’s desk every morning before she sits down, so that no one could possibly read her writing by holding the pad up to a mirror. He then has the responsibility of destroying the blotting paper, just to make sure.

Although, as stated, the Royal Household employs over a thousand men and women, less than a dozen come into regular contact with The Queen. The majority either wait on other people in the Household, or work in one of the various departments as office staff, accountants, tradesmen, chauffeurs, gardeners and cooks.

The main divisions at Buckingham Palace have remained the same since Queen Victoria’s time: Below Stairs, Above Stairs and Out of Doors, though it would be politically incorrect to use those
anachronistic
terms today. The jobs may be the same, but the titles change with the years.

Instead of scullery maids, they now have kitchen operatives, and housemaids have replaced skivvies. Footmen have remained as they were – with one notable exception, the Palace now employs female footmen after 200 years of restricting the post to men. Equal opportunities have finally caught up with the Royal Household, or perhaps it is the other way around.

Many of the changes to the Household have been definite improvements. Prince Philip earned the undying gratitude of generations of footmen when he dispensed with the ancient custom of them having to powder their hair with an obnoxious substance that took hours to remove. He also did away with the ridiculous system of the two kitchens in the Palace: one for royalty, the other for everyone else. But when he attempted to sell off a number of a range of
beautiful
copper jelly moulds, he was beaten when he was informed that before they could be sold, all the royal ciphers – some dating back to Queen Victoria’s reign – would first of all have to be removed, so he gave up the idea.

But not all the changes have been painless. The streamlining of the staff has meant that men and women who have served for years have been put out to grass, as there simply was not a job for them to do any more. They hated it of course, most of them having known nothing but Palace life since they were old enough to work. But savings had to be made and the Keeper of the Privy Purse and Master of the Household, propelled by the Duke of Edinburgh, wielded the knife with ruthless determination.

There are separate divisions within the Above Stairs category, with Members right at the top, followed by Senior Officials and Officials.

The Members are the people right at the top. Headed by the Lord Chamberlain, Head of the Royal Household, the others all lead the six departments that run the Palace.

The Private Secretary, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, the Master of the Household, the Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office (the Lord Chamberlain himself has little to do with the everyday running of the department that bears his name), the Crown Equerry and the Director of the Royal Collection.

Immediately beneath these people are the Senior Officials, the men and women such as the Chief Accountants and managers in each department. The day-to-day administration is left in the capable hands of the Officials: the clerks, junior managers and
assistant
personnel staff. In other words the lower ranks of white-collar workers.

Right at the bottom of the ladder are the Staff: cooks, cleaners, footmen, housemaids, chauffeurs, mechanics and gardeners. And there are also some fifty extra
workers
based permanently at Buckingham Palace to care for the fabric of the building. These are not on the strength of the Household but employed by the Department of the Environment. The Post Office is run by Royal Mail and while those who work there are also not paid by The Queen, they are allowed to use many of the
facilities
enjoyed by the regular Palace staff.

One way of telling in which category of royal
servant
a person falls (and they are all regarded as servants,
even the Lord Chamberlain) is to note how they are addressed.

At the very top, Members all call each other by their Christian names, no matter how junior or senior they may be. With one exception. The Lord Chamberlain is always referred to by his title – by everyone. Otherwise, a junior assistant press
secretary
, who might have joined the Royal Household in recent months, would still be expected to address Sir Christopher Geidt, The Queen’s Private Secretary and the most influential man in the Palace, as Christopher. Such informality is taken for granted and doesn’t seem to diminish in any way the mutual respect the Members have for each other.

Surnames are always used when referring to Officials. They only use Christian names between men and women of equal rank and status. And it is usually Mr, Mrs or Miss though a few ‘Ms’s have crept in in recent years when a number of feminists have insisted on being addressed as such.

Staff do not have the problem of trying to
distinguish
between Members, Senior Officials and Officials. They call everyone Sir or Madam. Though one or two of the longest-serving domestic staff have their own way of saying Sir that lets the recipient know what they really feel.

Angela Kelly, The Queen’s senior dresser and now Personal Assistant and Curator of Her Majesty’s Jewels, is the servant closest to The Queen in every way. She sees her every day, is a confidante and adviser on the royal wardrobe and although technically she is Staff, and is invariably correct in her dealings with
those above her in the Palace hierarchy, they all know she has the ear of The Queen, and are therefore wary when approaching her. She is not a woman anyone, including the Lord Chamberlain, would wish to offend. Not that she parades her superiority. She is a vivacious, outgoing personality who enjoys life to the full, with a splendid apartment near The Queen’s quarters at Buckingham Palace and another elegant home in Windsor Great Park. So it is obvious that Her Majesty recognises her worth.

One section of the Household defies being put in a particular category. The ladies-in-waiting to The Queen are unpaid but receive expenses; they are not employed as such but are all personally invited by The Queen, even though she does not make the approach herself. The Mistress of the Robes, always a Duchess, is the senior lady-in-waiting and when there is a vacancy, The Queen will let the Duchess know the name of someone she feels might be suitable. They are all personal friends from the upper classes. This is not because of snobbery, but simply because ladies with this sort of background are more likely to ‘know the form’ which can be important in royal circles. The Duchess then mentions it to the lady in question in such a way that if she does not wish to join the ranks of the
ladies-in
-waiting, she can decline without offending Her Majesty. To date, no one has ever refused the honour. When they first meet The Queen in the morning, they give a little curtsy and address her as Your Majesty. Thereafter it is Ma’am. In previous centuries, ladies-
in-waiting
were political appointments that were highly sought after as they could act as conduits between
the Sovereign and Government and even exert some ministerial influence on the monarch (can you
imagine
Cherie Blair as one of Her Majesty’s Women of the Bedchamber?). That power has long since disappeared and the benefits felt by the holders of these posts today is purely of social significance. Even within the ranks of the Ladies-in-Waiting, there are divisions: as stated, right at the top is the Mistress of the Robes, who only appears on special ceremonial occasions such as the State Opening of Parliament when her duties include assisting The Queen to dress in her formal robes at the House of Lords. Next in seniority are the ‘Ladies of the Bedchamber’ who are all titled, but who have nothing to do with putting Her Majesty to bed. The third category is the Women of the Bedchamber. These are the everyday workhorses and they do not have to be titled, though several of them are. They are on duty two weeks at a time when they have the use of the ladies-in-waiting drawing room where they answer any personal letters The Queen wants written;
especially
if they are to young children or the very elderly and a note from the private secretary is considered to be too formal.